viagogo’s and Manchester City multi-year global partnership has been designed to give fans around the world new opportunities to access and experience the club’s live men’s and women’s matches. In practice, hospitality tickets taken from the existing allocation for men’s matches and tickets for women’s home fixtures will soon be made available on viagogo’s platform.
We spoke to Matt Drew, international business development lead, to find out more about the partnership and what it will mean.
How did this partnership come about from viagogo’s perspective?
“This represents a big step forward for our direction and strategy, which is working very closely in partnerships with sports rights holders, federations, leagues and clubs in a way that our business has not historically done.
In the sports commercial space, there’s been a lot of focus on broadcast rights and on sponsorship arrangements, but not so much on what’s feasible in the ticketing space.
Our view is that the ticketing industry is ripe for disruption. It has operated in a static way for a generation, it’s one-size-fits-all, and often not segmented by region or type of fan – so there’s a lot to be done there and this, alongside our partnership as the official ticketing partner of BWT Alpine F1 Team, are incremental steps on that pathway.”
How will this collaboration solve a problem for fans?
“The current obstacle facing fans who want to attend a Premier League game, whether that’s domestic or international, is the view that it’s difficult to get a ticket. And we know from our own data that the number of international fans coming over to the UK to watch football last year was up 62 per cent.
Because of the way the system works – and the understandable regulations and legal requirements for UK football ticketing – those fans often turn to the underground market and unsafe, unsecure places to try and find a ticket. That leads to an increase in fraud and a suboptimal experience for those fans that neither they, nor the clubs they support, want them to have.
A significant part of this partnership is geared towards international fans but also importantly, provides a secure option for anyone purchasing this way. It’s critical to establish pathways that offer fans certainty and a clear process for obtaining tickets – tickets that come directly from the club and are available on a safe, regulated platform with consumer protections.
We estimate there’s a £250m underground market in Premier League tickets that is leaking out of the football economy – that clubs, as originators of the events, are not benefiting from. And which, most importantly, also leads to very negative fan experiences too.”
How does it align with Man City’s long-term goals?
“From a rights holder’s point of view, there’s a much bigger opportunity to increase outreach and engagement with fans – and with a broader range of ticket buyers who are currently underserved.
The data intelligence that we can open up to Manchester City is very significant: about who their fans are, what their fans are interested in, what other events they’re attending. Those are very relevant insights at a time when clubs like Manchester City are further developing their understanding of fan behaviours.
A shared vision for both of us is to create more opportunities and secure access for fans, wherever they are.”
How will you ensure Man City’s women’s team benefits equally from the partnership?
“With the rapid evolution and success of Man City’s women’s team, it’s about continuing to drive fan engagement and broadening that reach.
There will be a group of fans who go to the women’s team’s games because they’re fans of the men’s team. There will be other potential fans out there who do not follow the men’s team but go to music gigs and are live event lovers who’d enjoy watching women’s games. We think we have the capacity to support the growth by sharing insights on consumer trends from our platform to help them grow their audience across the various sectors that we participate in.
In 2024, fans from over 200 countries and territories purchased over 40 million tickets on our platform, so there’s a journey of discovery there that they might not otherwise go on.”
What measures will be in place to ensure transparency in pricing through viagogo? How will prices be set?
“Like all football clubs, there’s a flex in how those tickets will be priced. I think that’s a fact of life in football and we’re operating in that same environment, so we’ll be working within the club parameters of pricing tickets competitively.”
Won’t this make it easier for bad actors to get their hands on tickets and try to resell them?
“One of the benefits of the direct issuance model on our regulated marketplace is that we have robust controls, anti-fraud measures in place, and 24/7 customer service, all of which help protect consumers and create a seamless ticket-buying experience.
As tickets are coming directly from the rights holder, they’re flagged as Official Partner tickets. That means we can track them along the entire chain of custody, until the person with that ticket arrives at the gate.”
Does this deal signal a shift in viagogo’s business model towards becoming a primary ticketing provider rather than just a secondary marketplace?
“It’s an area of our business that we’re significantly ramping up. We partnered with BWT Alpine F1 Team recently and our sister company StubHub in North America has partnerships with rights holders in the US, including the New York Yankees.
There’s a real opportunity to make it easier for fans to access their favourite live events, no matter where they are in the world, and we think working directly with partners and rights holders can address that – and provide significant benefits for rights holders, leagues and clubs.
Oftentimes, sports rights holders know a lot about their core hardcore fan base but they don’t tend to have the same depth of insights about the more casual fan base. The biggest and most successful way to get people to be fans of a sport for life is to get them to attend a live event.”
Which partners are you looking to work with? Is this only for sport?
“Our marketplace operates across sport, entertainment and all live events. Currently, we think that the sport sector is an area which has a huge amount of opportunity to evolve and will benefit most from direct issuance. Reviewing existing ticketing strategies is a route for rights holders and teams to increase revenues without investing in costly projects such as infrastructure overhauls.
Just this month we announced two partnerships becoming the official ticketing partner for BWT Alpine F1 Team and EHF Marketing, to help give fans more access to F1 races, and the best there is to see live in European club handball.
We’re also expanding in the music space – in the US, the US Concert Agency chose Stubhub as its single retail channel partner for Country’s Mega star Tim McGraw’s upcoming show at the historic Field of Dreams on August 30th, 2025.
In sport, Manchester City are a great example: a very innovative organisation. Commercially, they’re somewhat ahead of the curve in terms of how they operate, and how they’re trying to engage and build relationships with fans, including their development of the campus around the Etihad stadium.
But we see opportunities with almost any sports right holder – almost anyone in the sports ecosystem would get something very positive with working on a direct issuance basis with us, and leveraging the data and intelligence to create a better ticketing ecosystem and experience for their fans.”